jobs, won't reduce our deficit but will make sure that folks at the very top don't have to play by the same rules that you do. and i have got a different vision for america. i want to build on our strengths. and i put forward a plan to make sure that we are bringing manufacturing jobs back to our shores by rewarding companies and small businesses that are investing here, not overseas. i want to make sure we have got the best education system in the world. we're retaining our workers for the jobs of tomorrow. i want to control our own energy by developing oil and natural gas but also the energy sources of the future. yes, i want to reduce our deficit by cutting spending that we don't need but also by asking the wealthy to do a little bit more. so that we can invest in things like research and technology that are the key to a 21st century economy. as commander and chief, i will maintain the strongest military in the world, keep faith with our troops and go after those who would do us

harm. but after a decade of war, i think we all recognize we have got to do some nation-building here at home, rebuilding our roads, our bridges and especially caring for our veterans who sacrifice so much for our freedom. and we have been through tough times. but we always bounce back because of our character. because we pull together. and if i have the privilege of being your president for another four years, i promise you i will always listen to your voices. i will fight forever -- for your families. and i will work every single day to make had sure america continues to be the greatest nation on earth. thank you. >> governor? >> thank you, bob, mr. president, folks at lynn university, good to be with you. i'm optimistic about the future. i'm excited about our prospects as a nation. i want to see peace. i want to see growing peace in this country. it's our objective. we have an opportunity to have real leadership. america is going to have that kind of leadership and continue to promote principles of peace that will make the

world a safer place and make people in this country more confident that their future is secure. i also want to make sure that we get this economy going. and there are two very different paths the country can take. one is a path represented by the president which at the end of four years would mean we would have $20 trillion in debt heading towards greece. i will get us on track to a balanced budget. the president's path will mean continuing declining in take home pay. i want to make sure our take home pay turns around and starts to grow. the president's path means 20 million people out of work struggling for a good job. i will get people back to work with 12 million new jobs. i am going to make sure that we get people off of food stamps not by cutting the program but by getting them good jobs. america is going to come back and for that to happen, we're going to have to have a president to can work across the aisle. i was in a state where my legislature was 87% democrat. i learned how to get along on the other side of the aisle. we have got to do that in

washington. washington is broken. i know what it takes to get this country back and we'll work with good democrats and good republicans to do that. this nation is the hope of the earth. we have been blessed by having a nation that's free and prosperous, thanks to the contributions of the greatest generation. they have held a torch for the world to see, a torch of freedom and hope and opportunity. now it's our turn to take that torch. i'm convinced we will do it. we need strong leadership. i would like to be that leader with your support. i will work with you. i will lead you in an open and honest way. and i ask for your vote. i would like to be the next president of the united states to support and help this great nation and to make sure that we all together maintain america as the hope of the earth. thank you so much. >> gentlemen, thank you both so much. that brings an end to this year's debates and we want to thank lynn university and its students for having us. as i always do at the end of these debates, i leave you with the words of my mom who

said: go vote. make you feel big and strong. >> that's great. >> good night. >> thank you, bob. >> thank you. [ applause ] [ applause ] >> the third and final debate of this presidential election season is now in the books. while the first question in this debate focused on libya, the fireworks predicted on that topic never materialized,

megyn, governor romney did not press the administration's handling of libya but did say the president is turning his back on an increasing threat from radical islam around the middle east. the president went on the offense numerous times through the this debate and particularly intense exchange he accused romney of being wrong on foreign policy every time he is offered an opinion. governor romney fired back saying attacking me is not an agenda. as predicted, the debate turned about 15 minutes in to domestic policy and the u.s. economy. governor romney did attack president obama for a lack of leadership on syria. tonight the president reiterating that syrian president bashar assad, his days are numbered a year after saying really the same thing and after more than 30,000 syrians have died there. governor romney, perhaps struggled to put distance between his policy and obama policy saying he clearly did not want to pledge u.s. troops to any operation in syria. there is no political appetite for u.s. intervention in

syria. that was clear in his answers. and, finally, one thing i noted in his come back line to governor romney saying that the u.s. now has the smallest navy since 1917, president obama shot back saying it's a different time that we don't have horses and bayonets either and we have big aircraft carriers and submarines that go under water. and while that line got a lot of laughs here in the hall and probably got some debate points, it will be interesting to see how it played at home, if it came off as petty at all or may have minimized some of the concerns of many in the navy who voice concern about the current navy, especially in a place like the battleground of virginia. by the way, the total time megyn the president 42, governor romney 41 minutes 30 seconds. megyn? >> megyn: bret, out here, we were watching it together and wondering whether mitt romney was struggling to put distance between himself and barack obama's policies or whether that was exactly his plan

going into the evening to put that distance between the two men. it was a very different i do ma'am nic. mitt romney staring at barack obama. some suggesting he may have look at little angry or acted a little bit more aggressively. mitt romney smiling and sort of the obama team put it the other day the happy warrior in debate. took a complete pass on libya as you mentioned and talked about how we deal with these extremists saying we can't kill our way out of this mess and talking about later how we want a peaceful planet. accusing president obama a failure to lead. making his points more on overall policy failure and obama team part saying our influence in the world is receding. much as he did in that debate last week where he gave one answer, mitt romney did, that summed up his positions on the economy. that one sound bite that got repeated over in over in the days that followed. he attempted to do the same tonight on foreign policy when

he talked about the situation in syria. he talked about 30,000 dead and a failure to lead in his view. chaos in the middle east, jihadists continuing to spread. iran four years closer to iran. trade war with china. korean expanding nuclear technology. that seemed to be where he was going with his line. one piece of news on the sequestration that's heading our way, and whether these defense cuts are going to happen to our military. the president making a bit of news there. he first blamed the congress, which is not news. but then said it's not going to happen. so that is interesting. because right now it is going to happen. but maybe the president knows something we don't. we're going to get right to our panel now. senior writer for "the weekly standard" steve haste and former howard dean manager and fox news contributor joe trippi. joe? >> i just wanted to call it debate the big hug. because i think that's what romney was doing. he decided he was going to hug obama on policy after policy, not disagree with him.

i mean, it was amazing, agreed with him on syria, not sending troops. in agreed with him on iran. said we should have the catastrophic tough sanctions but he would have done it a little earlier. all of it was, again, trying to -- i think, look, the strategy was to not let obama paint him as the reckless guy who was going to take the country to war. so, he was in there with principles for peace. and agreeing with the president far more than disagreeing with him and didn't even take him on on the libya and benghazi stuff which was -- i mean, literally walked away from the question without really engaging on it. i think that the president was very aggressive and it's hard to win a debate when you are not in that mode, in the aggressive mode that we saw romney n the first debate and the president was more. i think we saw a switch in roles. nowhere near the differential in that first debate. i think the president had an edge tonight.

>> i don't think he had an edge. i agree you can't really win a debate unless you are aggressive. but you can lose one. i don't think the president necessarily came out of this as a loser. i really wonder how some of these lines that he deployed against mitt romney played at home tonight. it seemed to me that early in the debate, the first ten minutes the president seemed to cross the line between being aggressive and critical, seeking to provide contrast. and being down right disrespectful. there were several times when he said there is one time where he said to mitt romney i'm glad you recognize al qaeda as a threat. really? i mean is there anyone who doesn't recognize al qaeda and the threat? there is another time where he talked about mitt romney seeming to think that foreign policy is playing battle ship. i think that he seemed to cross lines. risk being viewed as being unpresidential in those kind of attacks. the other striking thing i think is what joe pointed out. this was mitt romney trying to be presidential bipartisan, sort of above the fray and obviously an effort not to sound like george w. bush and

the result, i think, was that in this effort not to sound like george w. bush he spent a good part of the night sounding like barack obama, making those sound arguments that the president made. >> megyn: that is a comparison that team obama tried to paint to paint romney ryan as the next bush-cheney. bret? >> bret: i was really surprised about the libya thing. i think the president even tried to go back to libya to draw him out and possibly get engaged on the libya topic. let's go back to fox news senior political analyst brit hume and "fox news sunday" anchor chris wallace, both in washington. brit, first your thoughts. >> brit: well, one thought would be, i thought bob schieffer did a good job in the same way jim lehrer did which was by keeping a light hand in letting the candidates go at it as much as possible. the ii thing i thought about this was mitt romney had a job tonight. that was to come across as a plausible commander and chief. it would have been very damaging to him if there had been areas of the world and subject matters raised by the questions or raised by the president that he didn't seem to really know anything about. i didn't detect such a moment.

he seemed to me smooth and fluid and well informed about all the matters that came to hand and he had something to say about all of them. i don't think it hurt him that he and the president didn't have broad disagreements about some of these matters because i don't think these are the issues on which the election is likely to be decided. i do think that he did effectively use the economy and the weakness of the economy as a weapon in a debate about foreign policy and our position in the world. i would say this about the president. i thought the president was looking as he well might have for a default expression. this was -- these debates are about what everybody -- what the candidates say but also about how they appear. when the other person is talking because there is so much of this is on a split screen. the president had a very intent look on his face. i wouldn't describe it as a mean look. i would describe it as a man looking for opportunities to strike. the president -- governor romney, it seemed to me, has this kind of benign default expression in which he appears to be interested most of the

time. he has a slight smile on his face but not a smug one. i wonder if his was not the more attractive default expression because that kind of thing matters. i thought the president did well and argued his points well. i thought he was burdened time and again by the record. it's very difficult to talk about how well you are going to do against iran when iran is nuclear program which have you pledged to stop is still going on. it's very hard to talk about the strength of the economy when we all know the economy is not strong. so i thought that the president did a good job arguing what, because of circumstances, may be the weaker case. >> bret: chris, a number of fact checks along the way. >> chris: yeah, let me first give you my general opinion. and that was, i thought in the middle of the debate that if i had been on the desert island for the last four years and i had just been parachuted into this debate, i would have thought the guy that had turned out to be mitt romney was the president protecting a lead and that barack obama was the challenger trying, somewhat desperately to catch up. obama was slashing, was personal, was cutting. i thought that romney was big

picture, seemed to have much more of an agenda for the future than the president did. and i emailed one of his top aides in the course of debate and said what's behind this strategy? and clearly he was not taking the bait. not getting into fights with barack obama. and this official said this is all mitt romney's idea. this is how he wants to conduct this debate. now, let's get into some fact-checking. the first fact on which they disagreed had to do with this question as to whether or not the president charged mitt romney wanted to keep troops in iraq after they were -- the vast majority were pulled out. let's play the clip. >> you and i agreed, i believe, that there should have been a status of forces agreement. >> that's not true. >> oh, you didn't want a status of forces agreement. >> no. what i would not have done is left 10,000 troops in iraq that would tie us down. that certainly would not help us in the middle east. >> i'm sorry, you actually -- there was an effort on the part of the president to have a status of forces agreement. >> well, in fact, i think you have to give the points to mitt romney on that.

provided as part of the troop withdrawal by george w. bush and in a deal with the iraqi prime minister is that there would be a status of forces agreement and that there would be a residual force there was talk of it as little as 5,000. the military wanted closer to 20,000. the person put in charge of it was joe biden, the vice president, and at one point he said i will bet you my vice presidency, mall lack can i, the prime minister will extend the status of forces agreement. but it all fell apart. they never got it it's clear romney was right. obama was wrong. obama wanted and failed to get a status of forces agreement. the other thing and we talked about this before, this very cutting moment when obama -- rather, romney was talking about how obama was going to gut the military. and obama said well, you don't understand what the military is today. let's play that. >> i think governor romney may be -- hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. you mentioned the navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. well, governor, we also have

fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed. we have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. we have the ships that go underwater. nuclear submarines. >> well, as it turns out, in the middle of the debate, after he heard this a marine tweeted fox news and said: the marines still use bayonets, so it may not be clear who doesn't understand what the military currently uses. finally, very briefly on the auto bailout, in an editorial that romney wrote in november of 2008, which had the headline he didn't write it, let detroit go bankrupt. he did argue for bankruptcy, a managed bankruptcy but at the end he he said: the federal government should provide guarantees for post bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk. so at least on that point, again, romney seems to have had the record straight. >> bret: chris, brit, thank you, megyn, over to you.

>> megyn: when we come back, charles krauthammer with his thoughts and greta van susteren. stay with us.

but when i was in an accident... i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life.

so i never missed a beat. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. >> bret: welcome back to boca raton, florida, lynn university here. let's go to greta van susteren in washington for what she thought of the debate and what she has coming up "on the record." greta? >> thanks, bret. we are here with pat buchanan. he served as senior advisor to nixon, ford and reagan. presidential candidate himself. pat, how do you measure who won? what's your criteria and who won? >> well, the criteria that i have is that mitt romney had to come in here and show himself to be able to be the first dip in the country.

he had to show himself to be the commander and chief. he had to show himself knowledgeable in foreign policy. i think he accomplished that, so that is a victory for him. and i also believe that he avoided the pitted fall of this debate which is the democrats and president obama wanted to push him out there into sort of a belly coast individual who is going to give certain weapons to the syrians, get us into that war. get us in war with iraq. mitt romney avoided that consciously, i think and deliberately. he was a very reasoned but tough here. so i think in those terms, he wanted. he had a couple of interventions terrific in there. i do think the president started off stronger. i think if you take a look at the two men at the end of the debate, greta, mitt romney was smiling, he was relaxed. he looked like a winner. and the president seemed -- was making some petty attacks on him, i though out, and seemed like he was us from the straighted and not ending the way he wanted. i think overall, i mean, mitt romney did everything he had

to do. if you had made debate on points, clearly areas in there where the president beat romney clearly, but i think overall it was sort of even debate but you have to say mitt romney is the winner. he accomplished what he came to do. >> greta: if there is no daylight between them on so many matters of foreign policy, if you are truly an undecided and if you are going to base your entire decision on tonight, you are going to make your decision basically on probably what you should who do you like better? who might have come across better or who was more effective? i mean, it's hard to make a decision based on this one. >> let me say one -- i mean, i am an economic patriot or economic nationalist. i thought mitt romney's answer on china, we don't want war with china. we want to work with them. they are a great power. but then he laid out the abuses that they have put down there and have got to put an end to these things. look, we want free trade, he is saying, but we're not going to accept cheating and all the rest of it. and we're going to have some responses to that i think that has a tremendous appeal,

especially in the industrial midlands of the country. >> greta: i think if i were to say what i like best that governor romney did tonight it wasn't until the very end when he looks into the camera and he says to the american people something i will work with you. and i think, you know, with all the sort of problems that the american people have had with washington, i thought that was effective. anyway, pat, we have got to go. thank you. >> um-huh. >> greta: be sure to join us again at midnight for a special hour of "on the record." carl rove and political panel will be here plus more. we will see you at midnight. right now back to you, bret. >> bret: all right, greta, thanks. see you then. >> megyn: when we come back, charles krauthammer joins us live with his thoughts. don't go away live here in boca raton, florida. ♪

(sirens) (train horn) ♪ >>. >> the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities.

the spinners for both

campaigns out here in spin alley in the post debate wake. you can see people under signs what we want to go to washington, d.c.. that is where charles krauthammer is live. charles, your thoughts tonight? >> i think romney won. he didn't just win tactically, but strategicly. he needed to draw and continue momentum he's had since the first debate. he had to go up there and show he's a competent man, a man who knows every area and give extra interesting details that gave the impression he knows what he's talking about. but there is a third level here, that is what happened in the debate. we can argue about small points and debating points. romney went large, obama went very, very small. romney made a strategic

decision not to go after the president on libya, syria, or other areas where obama could be accusing him of being a bush-like war monger. boy have gone after obama about libya like a baseball bat. what he did concentrate on is the big picture, people don't care what our policy on syria is going to be. they care about how america is perceived in the world and how america carries itself in the world. the high point is when he devastatingly leveled the charge of obama going around on at polling tour. about a week of that. romney's response to say, to quote obama saying we dictate to other nations and romney said we liberate them. and obama was speechless.

obama, so that is the large picture, america is strong and respecting. what obama did is he kept interrupting and his responses were almost all very small, petty attacks. lowest was when he is talking about sanctions in iran. when ways working on sanctions you were investing in a company in china. i mean that is the kind of attack you expect from a guy running for city council for the first time, not what you expect from the president. personal attack about an investment when talking about iran? i thought romney had the day. he looked presidential. president did not. that is the impression i think that is going to be left. >> mitt romney sounded more on the right and how will that play? >> well, i think those on the right left would have loved to have been belacose in the but

will understand why romney did it. he stayed away from pit falls. he did not allow himself to be painted as a war amonger. it's what reagan understood in 1980 and did well. >> charms kraut hammer, thank you. >> he mentioned sequester, massive cuts to the dpeens department, the pentagon coming up on january 2. the president said tonight the sequester will not happen. that was a key moment. will now, white house campaign is back and saying in the spin room just behind you, pressed on this, he said repeatedly everyone in washington agrees that sequester quote should not happen. and asked again and said it should not happen. will not happen has become should not happen. we'll see what happens with that. fox news teamed up with folks at twitter to find out wha